This week is a big holiday week for Thais as they celebrate their traditional New Year: Songkran. Last time I was in Thailand during Songkran I was in for a pleasant surprise. Songkran is basically a country-wide water fight for a week. Friends and families will station themselves along roadways and throw water on passersby. I was in Chiang Mai for Songkran three years ago and it is quite a party there. Around the center of the city there is an ancient wall (well, pieces of wall) in a square with a moat around it, and it is the perfect spot for playing Songkran. My friends and I grabbed buckets, tied string to the handle, and would lower our buckets into the moat to collect water for our throwing pleasure. We were basically soaked through and through for about five days solid. During the hottest month of the year in a tropical climate, this was a very welcome relief from the heat.
At the children's home here, the leadership decided to give all of the Thai staff the week off to celebrate Songkran with their families, so that left four of us foreign girls in charge of the kids all week long. Crystal and I are in the boy's house with five rambunctious boys ages 5-10 and of course baby Non who is know 2.5 months old, while Kyndra and Joanna are in the girls' house with six girls ages 7-15.
To start off Songkran, we decided to take the kids to the pool for the day yesterday. We dropped the baby off with G'no and Moi, a lovely couple who adore Non, and took the rest of the eleven children out to lunch and then to the pool.
We really had a fantastic day for the most part. There was only one scare: some of the older kids were playing at the deep end and going off the slide and one of the younger girls decided to go play with them. She went off the slide but didn't have a floatie and was struggling to stay above water. Just before this, I had decided to make my way over to that end of the pool so they would have some supervision, but my pace quickened as I saw this girl struggling. Thankfully when I got to her she was just fine and didn't seem to have inhaled any water, but she was quite frightened. There was no need for a lecture; she knew now not to go to the deep end without an adult or a floatie.
Besides that scare, the rest of the day at the pool went off famously. All four of us enjoyed having that time to play with the kids in the pool for hours on end. When we returned home EVERYONE, nannies and children, were tuckered out. The boys didn't even fight Crystal when she put them to bed earlier than usual. They needed their sleep, and so did we!
1 comment:
Sounds like a great day! By Friday you girls will be happy the celebration has come to a close. :)Eleven children and a new born, WOW. I hate to ask how the Tubba Blubbas are going. The fourth graders ask me almost everyday when they will return.
I was wondering if you can put the postage reciept in the box when you mail it back? I can deposit a check into your account as soon as you know how much, but the school needs the reciept for their books. Thanks again for being our pen pals. You don't have to write too much, just some interesting info from such a mysterious country for these fourth graders. :)
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